PreacherBob
Member
I came across this solid chambered body classical guitar in the late 90’s for $400 from the brother of a Hispanic Latin studio guitarist who passed away. He sent me a recorded track. I had already collected a few Washburn acoustics, not much of a nylon string guy, but ok, it’s pretty anyways. Spruce over mahogany, with a neat rosewood body edging And fingerboard. So I could not find anything on this guitar it has no markings except a small serial number in gold leaf back of headstock. Made some calls with that info. Apparently, Washburn had intended to offer a limited run of the SBC 70, but deemed it was not profitable due to cost. So they deleted the project after 10 guitars. I was pointed to a 1994 catalog where all the models were listed, and there it was. However, in all of the columns where the different specs were listed for each Washburn model, there was only N/A’s for the SBC 70, like it did not exist. Anyways since we’ve all gone from a narrow nut, to 1 11/16”, 1 5/8”, to a 1 3/4”, I wondered what it would be like to go beyond reality. Here the SBC 70 comes into play. So I made a different saddle and nut in my custom shop, keeping the same classical string spacing, got a set of .046-.010s (with the wound G). The hard plastic pegs classical style tuners still today serves the steel strings well. No truss rod, however the neck has stayed straight, with very minimal relief, action is quite low. Classical necks are built to stay under or at 100lbs. tension as electric solid bodies are. Acoustic dreads up to 200lbs, medium strings pulling 175lbs on a bridge. So I’m at 98lbs, everything has been great to this day. On the nights I play it, my fingers are happy. Barred chords are super easy, finger style is errorless (normally a little sloppy for me), open chords are not jammed up. The original under saddle pickup works great. Sounds just like the Gibson Chet Atkinson SST I’ve played before. A few affects then it’s more les Paul than strat. I’ve thought about putting a single coil close to the neck, but how would that sound?? I’m not concerned about altering the guitar, but not wanting to waste the effort.
